


Cascade Failure (The Magical Meddling Remix)

by runningondreams



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 3490
Genre: Angst, F/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Past Relationship(s), Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 19:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17473937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningondreams/pseuds/runningondreams
Summary: Never trust magic,never trust magic, how could she have forgotten that?





	Cascade Failure (The Magical Meddling Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Difference It Makes (the Erase/Rewind remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17424659) by [cptxrogers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptxrogers/pseuds/cptxrogers). 



> Written for the Cap-Iron Man 2019 Remix Relay event.

She didn’t mean for things to turn out this way. 

And isn’t that the story of her life. _She didn’t mean it to turn out this way_. She hadn’t meant for her inventions to end up in terrorist hands, hadn’t meant to get Yinsen killed. She hadn’t meant to be born a girl, either, instead of the son Howard thought he was getting, but here she is anyway. Man up, Tasha. You made this mess. Deal with it.

It had just seemed like a golden opportunity, the spell glittering before her, waiting to be put to use. She’d thought it would be nice, to have an actual secret identity again. To resume at least the appearance of a normal life. Recapture some privacy. She’d thought it would be simple. Wipe the slate clean, then only tell the people she actually trusts. At the time she’d even thought: with her secret identity restored, maybe she and Steve could be more relaxed with their relationship. No one had ever crawled through a ceiling vent to try and take pictures of whoever _Iron Man_ kissed behind closed doors. 

And it worked, too. She knew as soon as she reached the mansion of the Avengers debrief. No one greeted her by name, not even Steve. He didn’t look at her with the faint smile he’d been wearing lately, even. All business. Iron Man: trusted associate. 

But then he hadn’t known her out of the armor either. She’d changed clothes and planned to invite him down to the workshop, planned to tell him first, but he’d looked at her like she was a stranger. 

“I’m sorry, Miss Stark,” he’d said, as if she hadn’t cured him of calling her that years ago. “Is there something I can do for you?” And it wasn’t a joke.

She’d made sure, of course. A few careful questions. She received polite, slightly confused answers. The vague acknowledgment of an acquaintance. One instance of standing a little closer than normal and watching him step away instead of relax. It was like he didn’t remember _anything_ with more than a tenuous connection to her as Natasha Stark, and only slightly more as Iron Man. Certainly nothing they done or talked about since the first time her secret identity came out. It’s as if the spell reached into his brain and hollowed out the spaces where she’d been. 

There was no point in telling him her secret identity. There were no memories for the knowledge to link to. She was just a distant figure with deep pockets, if that. And Iron Man was a friend he talked to about books. About Avengers business. Occasionally, if he was feeling particularly unmoored, what she knew for a fact were only his top-layer concerns about being Captain America or “living in the future.” They didn’t even spar together very often.

No late-night movie binges. No deep discussions of technology and medicine and the responsibility of ethical use. No impromptu museum visits, no burger dates, no stolen kisses, no _relationship_.

She’d had to shut herself in her workshop and scream into a muted helmet when she’d realized. Every conversation, every date, every hard-won molecule of trust, all the context they’d built, the stable footing they’d found together, all of it gone in a single moment. If she wanted it back she’d have to start over. Make new gestures all over again and just hope she didn’t screw things up even worse this time.

But she’s an engineer. She knows how to work a problem. She runs more tests, gathers more data, and learns: Not even _Jan_ remembered her secret identity. It’s as if she’d never stepped into the workshop and caught Natasha with the faceplate in her hands, their friendship arrested in the past like an insect caught in amber. A few more tests confirm it. Thor has no idea. Nor does Beast. Wanda doesn’t suspect. Vision never so much as looks at her oddly. Rhodey doesn’t know. Pepper doesn’t know. _Jarvis_ doesn’t know. Those relationships, too, are frozen in time, everything as it was before she built the suit. The only person in the entire _world_ who knows that she’s Iron Man, is her.

It’s fucking _lonely_.

Never trust magic, _never trust magic_ , how could she have forgotten that? At least with technology she had a chance of figuring out _why_ and _how_ things happened. Magic just said, “oh yeah, and there’s a cost.” She hadn’t thrown a switch or said any words but apparently it didn’t need that much. All it needed was intent.

 _She hadn’t meant it to turn out this way_. But here she is.

She has to step back. Look at the whole picture. What’s best isn’t always easy, and what’s right isn’t always obvious. She’s learned that well enough. Can she reverse the spell? No. Can she ask someone who actually knows about magic for help? Maybe. But magic has already changed so much. What’s to stop the next change turning worse? It’s magic. If it can do _this_ , she can’t even imagine what it might do next.

It’s better to just leave it be, she decides. Safer. For everyone. Her friends are still her friends, they just have different conversations at different times. Jan gossips with Natasha and strategizes with Iron Man. Rhodey and Pepper and Jarvis don’t worry over her quite as much, and don’t take so many risks on her behalf either. And maybe Steve’s better off without a mess like her in his life. She’s never been easy to be with, she knows, and they’d been fighting a lot recently; they’d had an argument the last time they really talked, even. He seems more serene now, without her probing questions and poking fingers. Less worried all the time. Less frustrated, in general. 

She distances herself from the team a little. Focuses on other projects. 

It’s better this way.

***

Steve corners her three weeks into their new state of affairs. Correction, he corners Iron Man. He wants to talk about some weird experiences he’s been having. Something that Beast calls stress and Thor says might be a curse. Dreams that feel important, laden with something he can’t quite remember. A feeling like something is missing. Puzzles he can’t figure out: A book inscription he doesn’t recognize. A restaurant he knows but has never been to. A set of miniature screwdrivers he doesn’t remember receiving. A ring he found in one of his coats, that looks like something one might give their lover.

A _ring_. 

She can’t listen to more. She cuts him off.

“That sounds complicated, Cap. And definitely strange.” She bites her lip and considers just taking the helmet off and confessing everything. It’d be easy to jump on Thor’s idea and use it; this certainly _feels_ like a curse, if one that she cast on herself. But is that what _she_ wants, or is that what’s best? Going with her own desires is what created this problem in the first place. And if Steve knows that what he’s forgotten could be important—she knows him. He won’t rest until he gets the world nailed down to his own satisfaction, every missing piece found and identified and re-examined. And there’s no reason to think he ever could get it all back. It might just make him miserable. 

“I think the important thing to focus on in cases like this is: Are you happy?”

She holds her breath as Steve considers, a familiar furrow settling between his brows. If he’s _not_ happy, she’ll tell him. There’s no point in lying to him if he’s not, somehow, better off not knowing.

“I guess so,” he says, still frowning slightly. Her heart sinks. 

Still, she rallies. Claps a hand on his shoulder and tells him not to worry, sending him on his way with well-wishes and an admonishment to get better sleep.

It was silly, she tells herself, to expect anything else.

But a ring.

She shuts herself in her workshop and works until her hands ache and her brain is too numb to entertain pointless possibilities.

***

She makes it two months before her secret identity comes out again, even if it’s only to the team. It’s the faceplate, this time. Well, mostly the faceplate. She takes a general pounding from the Blood Brothers, punches and kicks from both of them together, blows that slam her into buildings, or the pavement, and the armor cracks and crumples before Thor is able to zap one of them into unconsciousness and Steve and Jan lure the other away with some fierce stings and a well-placed shield throw.

Natasha lies half-in-half-out of a hastily evacuated delicatessen. Or what was probably a delicatessen, before she was used as a blunt instrument against the storefront and the ceiling and most of it got covered in rubble. She can smell vinegar, and bread, and coffee. The armor is sluggish and heavy and she feels air moving against her forehead. The chest plate is bowed inward over her lower torso, pressing painfully against her ribs and restricting her to shallow breaths. She tries to breath slowly, cataloging bruises. Her left leg hurts. Her nose is tender and throbbing, possibly broken. Her entire torso is probably blooming with purple.

Get _up_. Tasha. Problems don’t go away on their own.

She puts one gauntleted hand over her face and sits up. Pieces of the faceplate shift and fall with the motion. She guesses about a third of it is intact at all, a spread over her lower left cheek that will do nothing to conceal identifiable features. 

She should have known. The only way she could ever keep a secret identity forever would be to stop _being_ Iron Man, and she’s not giving that up. Not ever.

Beast finds her first and then the rest of the active team arrives, one after another, the Blood Brothers defeated and cuffed a careful half mile apart.

“That can’t be good for you,” Beast says, gesturing at her midsection. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take a look?”

“I’ll be fine,” she says, “It’s only bent.” She tries to keep her voice low, but Thor squints at her and Jan goes wide-eyed with surprise. Her jaw drops open, and then she slaps her hand over her mouth and Natasha knows she’s caught. And if Jan knows, it’s all dominoes from here. She’s not really sure why she’s even trying anymore. 

She lets her hand fall to her lap. 

“Stark?” Steve sounds surprised, and oh, that hurts. That’s really a kick in the head after too many kicks already. Last time, he’d called her Natasha.

“Hi.” Her smile feels more like a grimace. 

He’s frowning at her, that old familiar furrow between his brows. He looks to the rest of his teammates who, Natasha notes, aren’t quite as surprised. Perhaps Beast doesn’t care so much. Thor looks like he’s just solved a riddle. Jan’s wearing an expression that Natasha _knows_ means she’ll be getting an earful later. But still, there’s no sign that they remember the rest of it. The spell hasn’t lifted, or dispersed, or whatever it is spells do. Her secret identity is still new information for all of them.

When Steve turns back there’s anger in his eyes, a hint of what she thinks is wounded pride.

“Why didn’t you tell us before?” he says, and yep, this is awful, this officially sucks. Sure, he’s angry, but it’s less personal now. She’s just some woman who pays for stuff, not a friend. Even Iron Man isn’t as close to him, this time around. 

She shrugs, winces as pain tightens around her torso, and sighs.

“Sorry,” she says. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”


End file.
